My four strange but true green stories for autumn

With this week’s October half term holiday now is a good time to look back at four of this autumn’s amazing but true green stories.

Ron Fox, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park, (www.noreus.co.uk), picks his favourite recent environmental tales.

1. Climate change is forcing two European countries to move their natural borders. Melting Alpine glaciers have altered the historically established frontier between Switzerland and Italy. The Swiss government has approved changes to the border running beneath the Matterhorn, which separate the Zermatt region from the Valle d’Aosta in Italy because significant sections are defined by the watershed or ridge lines of glaciers. A joint Italian-Swiss commission agreed to the changes in May 2023. Switzerland officially approved the treaty last month, but Italy still needs to sign.
   Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent and is particularly noticeable in the Alps where glaciers have lost 10 per cent of their remaining volume over the past two years. Similar border changes are being negotiated between Switzerland and France.
2. British scientists have selectively bred coral to tolerate warmer seas for the first time offering ecosystems on barrier reefs around the world a glimmer of hope. Rising ocean temperatures have caused coral reefs to experience mass bleaching. The warmer oceans have forced polyps, the creatures that make up a single coral, to expel the colourful algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food. Without these algae, corals’ tissues become transparent, exposing their white skeleton which is called coral bleaching. Bleached corals are not dead, but they are more at risk of starvation and disease. Newcastle University researchers say their findings have seen modest changes so far, but they hope this will give the world time to tackle carbon emissions and stabilise the climate to give coral time to adapt to warmer oceans.
   The scientists focussed on 150 wild colonies of coral which contained thousands of polyps and were transplanted to a tank. They identified those best adapted to deal with warmer conditions and moved them to an aquarium before they were set to breed where they released their eggs and sperm. Their results show it is possible to improve the coral’s tolerance to short, intense heat exposure.
3. A 3,800-year-old tree could hold the key to carbon capture. When the cedar tree in Canada died, it sank underground before the Bronze Age and the Iron Age and lay undisturbed until it was dug up by scientists recently who found it had not degraded in the way in the way wood normally does. Preserved in soil without oxygen, it had stored almost all its carbon. Now researchers in the University of Maryland, USA, hope that by recreating its environment and producing a “wood vault” to lock up carbon it could be a new and much cheaper way of capturing carbon and removing it from the atmosphere.
4. A researcher who discovered how to make paper from leaves has launched his own business this autumn. The scheme will save water, greenhouse gas emissions and trees. Valentyn Frechka, aged 23, is from Ukraine, but is now working in Paris on his new process which involves a complex process involving disinfecting, washing, drying, crushing and then treating the leaves, which have been collected from French suburbs. Then non-chemical products are added to extract the cellulose fibres to make paper in an environmentally friendly way. To reduce world deforestation further, he is now looking at using other raw materials, such as seaweed, pineapple leaves, carrot, coconut, hemp liquorice, straw and animal dung to make paper.“I never cease to be amazed by the brilliant and imaginative ways scientists are finding to help save the planet and cut global warming,” said Ron.

He added: “If you want any energy advice, contact me call Ron on 0845 474 6641 or go to www.noreus.co.uk – but do have a green and happy half-term holiday.”

Caption: Turning over a new leaf – a researcher has found how to make paper from leaves.